Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan’s Pultizer-winning 1947 Broadway classic about a Southern belle with a dark past is given a delicate ballet makeover by director Joe Hasham this month. Starring prima ballerina Misako Kato as the penniless Blanche, who moves to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and her domineering brother-in-law Stanley, this iteration of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ boasts a compelling confluence of Malaysian-meets-Japanese dance genres.
To reflect Blanche’s ostensibly refined and brittle nature in the face of her blue-collar milieu, Kato’s headlining role will have classical ballet inflections, while the rest of the cast is set to go down a contemporary and modern dance route.